Does anyone else really enjoy Land Speed Record? It took me a while to get used to the fairly-bad recording quality but after that it became quite blazing thunder hot-lightning ice! to my ears. I think that if they recorded these songs in a studio this would be up there with Zen Arcade and Metal Circus for a lot of people.

Some of you might be interested in a couple of Husker Du performances I found while searching for some information on an old Minneapolis punk band. Both videos are from the Joan River's Show, and the material is taken from the Warehouse: Songs and Stories-era. The first video is Husker Du performing "Could You Be The One," with a short interview conducted afterwards, while the second video tacks on their second number of the night, "She's A Woman (And Now He's a Man)."

for me there are a lot of "seminal" bands like this, bands that i can appreciate from time to time, bands whose albums i own and sometimes listen to, but bands that i don't consider anywhere nearly as monumental as people make them out to be; ultimately, bands that i more or less like but don't particularly care about. perhaps this is a credit to the common sentiment, that it's "just music"? i dunno... but i've got plenty of records in my collection that are a hell of lot better and more inspired than Zen Arcade. (sure, it's got some great moments, and a few awesome songs, but on the whole it's a blustery hodge-podge. you can tell it was made in a day or so. when people declare it one of the fifty best albums ever, i can't help but cringe.)

i've heard most of their other early records as well, and though i recall them being all right, i honestly see no good reason why Husker Du should be cannonized for all eternity. maybe they were stellar live, or people like them so much because of their personlities/history/regional significance/etc., but i'm just not sold on Husker Du's alleged genius.

not crap, but hardly worth the endless superlatives heaped on their legacy.

I used to see Bob Mould on the subway sometimes, and I would wonder if anyone else in the car knew what I knew: that he was one of the best songwriters on the planet, in one of the best bands ever, and used to play a Flying V.

Having seen the band through various formulative phases, they started out good ("Amusement/Statues", went goofball for awhile ("Gilligan's Island", fer chrissakes), then became a real serious mind stretch for what punk could be like ("In a Free Land"), I'd have to say that overall, they were:

NOT CRAP.

Grant Hart did his best stuff with this band. Bob Mould did better later on, but I tend to prefer some of Grant's stuff with Husker than Bob's.

blue_thunder wrote:You know, I can't help but think that Kim Gordon records all of her vocals while dropping a deuce.